PHP developers wanting to take advantage of the powerful ASP.NET platform usually perceive it as a steep curve, especially if they have no prior ASP experience.

Here is a neat guide that walks a PHP developer through ASP.NET and migration considerations.

http://www.microsoft.com/japan/msdn/net/aspnet/aspnet-migratingphp-aspnet.aspx

Surprise! Surprise!

A whole new bunch of surprises that should excite the hell out of all those who have been working with Microsoft Expression and Windows Presentation Foundation.

Read the official announcement at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/dec06/12-04expression.mspx

Very notably - the first official public CTP of "WPF/E" (codename) has been announced today.  "WPF/E" (codename) is a very exciting technology that enables you to take your WPF-powered applications to a wide variety of platforms, including Internet Explorer, Safari on the Apple Mac and Firefox!!  That means that several WPF features can now be targeted to even non-Windows systems.  This is a big leap forward and I am sure a lot of people will be thrilled hearing that. 

Also, the Expression suite now has been re-branded and has a new member in the family.  There are also changes to some of the existing products and you can find it all at www.microsoft.com/expression

A new website for designers and design resources is now available at www.microsoft.com/design

Finally, Expression Web, a really fascinating product is now in its release version.  So a packet of surprises!  Go get them!

It was always amusing to think about the Google Answers service.  People paid to get answers to questions, some of which were really absurd at times. 

However, Google shutting down this service signals the fact that Google is wary of not running services that do not make sense from a revenue standpoint.  This should be new to Google fans who have probably never seen this happen before.  No wonder it has sparked off a lot of news and discussion.

Some discussions on the Google Answers site itself: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=786508

Arzoo.com, a Sabeer Bhatia venture did the exact same thing and shut shop even before the world knew about it.   Of course, Arzoo.com has re-launched as an online travel portal and it remains to see how well that will do.  

Google is reported to be cutting down many other services that do not make sense and do not have large user bases to make themselves focussed.  If you ask me, that is a signal to all other Web 2.0 startups there creating several online applications, many of which are meaningless and have no revenue direction.  Watch out - if Google thinks it is wise to shutdown a service that has been running for 4.5 years and risk a loss of reputation among a small user base - they must have really thought about it.  So it is time, many of the new dotcom startups put on their thinking caps as well.

The recently concluded IndiMIX event is now available online.  Visit http://www.msnspecials.in/indimix/video.asp to view the same. 

For those who are interested, I feature in the session titled Designing the Next Web. 

Also, from the same URL above, you can click on "BRIDGING THE TWO INDIAS" to watch a very interesting discussion on bridging the digital divide.  This happened a day earlier with Steve Ballmer and several other dignitaries at Delhi.  President Kalam presided over the occassion.

By the way, I am also featured in the Bob Muglia closing note video, desperately trying to hook up the laptop to a bunch of projector plugs in total disarray.  Did succeed eventually.

There has been so much happening around that I have been wanting to blog about.  After getting used to Windows Live Writer it is pretty much boring to blog in any other way.  And since I was upgrading to Vista Ultimate RTM (yeah baby!), I had to wait before I installed Live Writer and then got on to blog again.

Excuses. One always exists.

In fact, here are a few more. I have been a little busy after IndiMIX '06.  I was doing a bunch of Web Security sessions for an India Information Security Meet, happening in various cities.  I did a couple of sessions at Mumbai and am going to do a couple more at Bangalore.  For those who attended the sessions, please hang on - we promise to put the presentations and demos online.  Just have a little patience before we finish all the other cities as well.

The same goes for the huge audience we had at IndiMIX and for those who couldn't attend IndiMIX.  The recordings are getting ready - editing, quality, testing, etc. and will be up shortly.  Keep watching the IndiMIX website - www.indimix06.com.   IndiMIX was a huge success - thanks to the huge audience that joined in.  We would love to hear your feedback - please tell us what could have been better so we can fix it the next time around. I have been following the blogs of many of you who wrote about your experience at IndiMIX - it was one of a kind for us because of a huge, huge online participation and a simultaneous live broadcast across India - so there could have been hiccups, but a lot of people have still written that they liked what they saw.

I did a session on Microsoft Expression Web - one of the key products of the Expression Suite. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot and you will be amazed by what you see.   Honestly, I always preferred typing away HTML because I like getting layouts to be very precise and with no clutter.  Expression Web is a one-of-its-kind when it comes to generating the actual markup for stuff that is done in WYSIWYG mode.  Very concise, very accurate and no extra tags, misunderstood code, etc.  Seriously, you have to try it to believe it.  

Talking about UI and usability, people who have seen Microsoft Office 2007 simply fall in love with the new "ribbon toolbar".  The ribbon toolbar is one of the coolest UI innovations I have seen for a long time.  Office has always been the flagship for trend-setting new UIs. A lot of application developers are bound to follow the principles of the ribbon toolbar and create similar "user-aware" interfaces.  To make it easier for such developers, Microsoft has also opened out the Office UI for licensing.  Details are available here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa973809.aspx   It is amazing to see how we can take something as cool and innovative and not just go and patent it so nobody else does something similar for the next 10 years, but instead open it out for licensing and encourage people to adopt the path-breaking innovations.  That, to me, is the maturity that Microsoft shows in wanting its users to adopt to technology we think is useful.

Finally, I got to meet some really nice people at IndiMIX and one of them was Dax Pandhi. Very interesting character, and you would think so too if you were to read http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2006/nov/01outsource.htm before actually getting to meet the guy in person!  Dax was a real cool co-presenter, full of enthusiasm and completely crazy!!  Dax's blog, www.nukeation.net has the full story with pictures http://www.nukeation.net/2006/11/11/IndiMIX06.aspx  It was also fun to meet Leon Brown and to have Deepak Gulati in the same presentation.  Can still remember the previous night when we seemed to be in total disarray and almost got Leon throwing us all out of the window!   We did sync up eventually and put on a good show, and I can say that because a lot of my audience got back to me to say so.  Thanks again to all of you who watched.

It is an exciting time at Microsoft.  People who attended (or watched live) India's biggest event so far, IndiMIX '06 heard Steve Ballmer talking about Microsoft's Live platform.  Steve also announced the RTM of Vista!  Enterprise customers start getting Vista this month and consumer editions would be available in Jan.   Office 2007 has RTM'ed as well, making the environment even more exciting.

While all of these big ticket products are getting released, it is also exciting to see some of the other products such as Microsoft Expression shaping up very well.  I did a demo, my first big one at Microsoft, on Microsoft Expression Web.  The more I have explored that product, the more I am amazed at the amount of thought and planning that has gone into building it.

Talking about releases, I got to hear an exciting bit of news today.  In fact, I also got out of my laziness and decided to blog about it, because I was waiting for this to happen for quite a while now.

Photosynth has gone live today with a Tech Preview. For all those who watched videos of Photosynth and said - wow! that's really cool - here is a chance to preview the experience.  Mark my words again - you can only preview the experience at this time.  But even that is real cool.

A few tips - have a real good Internet connection and a modern PC - otherwise you might be a little disappointed.  Shouldn't matter eventually, but the current version needs this.  Also please provide your feedback to the Photosynth team.  Needless to say, this is something really innovative, never-tried-before stuff - so your inputs will be valuable in helping the Photosynth team build a great product.

Check it out at http://labs.live.com/photosynth

It has been a very interesting last month and though there was a lot of travel and the typical new environment to adjust to, every moment has been fun.

The first thing about Microsoft that hit me was the amount of information and resources available on hand. I always knew that I should expect an ocean of information, but this was like all of the world's water bodies are in one place!  If I were allowed, I could spend just a year or two going through all the information and doing nothing else!  I still doubt I will be able to digest everything.

Beyond that, there is a great pool of people to work with.  A much higher percentage of the really smart people, unlike other organizations where I have worked where it is limited to a very small subset.  My own team consists of a bunch of brilliant folk and getting a chance to work alongside a few evangelists whom I have heard talk before is really fun. 

The best part about Microsoft is the power to innovate and create.  There is serious freedom for innovation and a lot of support for making things happen. It is hard to explain without specifics - but here if I think I want to do something, something really big - say like doing something for the country that can change a thousand lives - I can get all the support I need from the organization to go do it.  I have never felt this empowered at any part of my life and so it is exciting.

So it has been a little hectic, primarily because of having to do all the joining formalities, work and settling down - all at one time.  I sure look forward to actively blogging again. Till then....

It is official and Vadi beat me to the announcement thanks to an email I had sent him. If you haven't already clicked the link to Vadivel's blog, don't. Read further.

I am super, super excited!!! It is practically a dream come true in a way!!!

I am joining Microsoft India as Windows Live Developer Evangelist, starting next month.  My role will include a lot of developer community interaction and working with the latest technologies.  More than that, I will be part of a team that has a lot of geniuses, so it will be a fun environment. Moreover, I will be moving lines from eight years in services with projects, timelines, deadlines, requirements, tracking, process, metrics and the like! 

At this point, a huge load of thanks to Divya (my lovely wife) for the tremendous support in helping me make the decision and then throughout the interview process (love you!!).  Thanks to family and a few close friends who knew a while ago and played the all-important role of providing moral support. Special thanks to some friends in Microsoft who provided insight into the role and guidance for making the decisions easier.

Thanks also to all the friends who for the past eight years have always kind of assumed that this would be an eventuality, who wished for it, who asked me time and again when I would do this, etc.  So here it is guys - I am joining Microsoft!!! 

In Pooja's style, Woo Hoo!!!!!